


Eventuality

by songbrd



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Last words, Panic Attacks, Post-Game(s), Sort Of, don't even think about reading this if you haven't finished the game, minor shuake, prepare to cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbrd/pseuds/songbrd
Summary: Closure, you could say.





	1. Chapter 1

Two gunshots.

He’d been standing there silently, ears buzzing with a low hum like that of a bee rather than the high pitch buzz of the security cameras that were familiar to him. His chest felt tight and heavy, lead of a thousand poisonous thoughts he couldn’t comb through all merging into one weighing him down, constricting him and freezing him in time, unwilling to accept the scene unraveling before him. He didn’t - couldn’t - react to the bullet that whizzed past their heads to hit the bulkhead door button, nor the bone-chilling announcement that followed. His team whirled about in confusion, but he remained steadfast. No, not steadfast. Numb. He knew what it meant, but acknowledging it would make it real. It couldn’t be real.

The rumble of thick metal that shifted up from the floor mere inches in front of him did not move him. Russet eyes, dark and determined, met his for one last second before the partition swallowed them up. He could faintly hear Ryuji screaming on his right, fists banging against the metal that was all at once knocking the wind out of their resolve and saving their lives. Yusuke spoke out from behind him, but their words were lost to the rush of blood in his ears, to the low hum of a buzz that was beginning to sound more like the waves of the ocean crashing over his drowning body. Only he wasn’t drowning, just stuck. A mere statue in the midst of a great war, not even capable of hoping he wouldn’t be toppled.

“The real fools are you guys. You should have just abandoned me here a long time ago…”

He knew words were being said, but the saltwater was in his skull, filling his lungs, sending him further into the depths…

A ragged cough caused them all to jump. The current dragged him back to the surface for a breath, before shoving him under again.

“Let’s make a deal...okay?”

Sad. That’s all he understood. He was _sad_. The weight of it wasn’t something he could bear. He could bear the weight of the entire Phantom Thieves' collective traumas, but this...this was unbearable. He couldn’t _do_ anything about this. His eyes played tricks, the space in front of him where the russet eyes he’d wondered about for so many months used to be still showed themselves there, burned into his memory.

His voice came unbidden to him. “I promise.”

Saying that broke him. He’d acknowledged it, now. Their momentary purgatory nothing more than a construct of his own mind. It was real, time was continuing to spin on without him. The screaming returned, voices on both sides of the walls failing to make sense as his throat closed up, his eyes burning and burning with fire that wasn’t allowed to spill, wasn’t allowed to show just yet, unlike Ann’s fire which spilled over her eyes so brightly as she begged Morgana for a solution, her voice breaking in its desperation. But Morgana knew what he knew.

They’d lost.

Two gunshots.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I try to read things aloud to myself before posting them to make sure my words flow and I started crying while reading this, so. (I also put on the P5 Regret theme on in the background like some sort of masochist??? If you really wanna get smacked with the sads today listen to that while reading).

The Phantom Thieves followed his lead, though where his lead was taking any of them at this point, he couldn’t possibly justify. The second the gunshots had finished echoing about the engine room, his body moved of its own accord, his prior paralysis all but nullified, his mind the only thing struggling to keep up.

He’d noticed a few things when they’d entered the room the first time, just in case. He always did. To his right, large metal tubes spanned the room, and above those was another floor of sorts. If he kept climbing up - well then, maybe there’d be a door, or an air duct somewhere. His gloved hands found purchase on the railing and he hauled himself up, strength emanating from somewhere, some pool within him he’d hoped to never have to tap into. 

“There, Joker! An air duct! It leads to another room!” Oracle called out. He followed her suggestion and followed the air duct into a little room which opened up to a hallway. With any luck, that hallway would loop around to the other half of the engine room. If he could make it to the other side of that partition, then maybe Akechi would still be there. Maybe he would still be standing. He could still be alive. Or...maybe he would be dead. The seed of doubt was planted firmly in Akira’s mind. There was always a possibility. Akechi was crafty, he was cunning, he was ambitious.

(Akechi was also broken, beaten, and fully expecting to die.)

He didn’t care to check for shadows as he sprinted through the back hallways of Shido’s god forsaken palace like a bat out of hell and luckily, there were none. He burst through door after door, following Oracle’s instructions until finally finding himself standing at the front door of the engine room. Akira didn’t even take time to check the status of things before his feet hit the ground running, a mistake leading to him almost colliding with a leftover frightened shadow.

“Ah - it’s you guys again…” the meek squeak of Titania reached his ears, which had ceased their ringing, but Akira ignored her. He was too preoccupied with the body of Akechi Goro that laid before him, splayed out on the cold, rusted metal, bleeding out from somewhere on the upper left side of his chest. His cognitive double was nowhere to be found. Akira immediately slid onto the ground, seizing Akechi as he went, lugging the boy’s limp body up onto his own, cradling him against his chest. He gingerly pulled the broken and cracked demonic helmet off of him, tossing it to the side carelessly. The metal clang rang throughout the chamber. Akira’s head sought solace in the crook of the other boy’s neck as he squeezed his eyes closed, too cowardly to look at Akechi’s face or at the blood that just kept flowing out of the chest he clung to. His hands, in a turn of utter irony, were slick with blood, too. The fire he’d held back burned freely now as angry, bitter tears spilled over despite his best efforts. He heard Akechi draw a ragged breath, and so sat back. Akira stared into the fluttering eyes of the boy he once considered an adversary, a rival, even a friend, or more. Akechi had always been something more to him, really, something they left undefined and unmentioned. Something to be read between the lines of sweet nothings said over coffee, the calculated back and forths at the station, glances shared as one of them landed the killing blow on a shadow, incredulously formal texts asking when they’d be meeting next. Undefined. Unmentioned. Until now, Akira’d never had a problem with it remaining that way. It had been for the best, right? It did none of them any good to fraternize more than necessary with the enemy, right?

“You’re...” Akechi croaked, “crying over me?”

Akira buried his face in the dying boy’s hair, unable to keep the tears back but unwilling to show it.

Akechi sputtered out a terrifying laughter, more like a haughty cough than a sound of genuine amusement. And then, he was crying too. Akira didn’t need to see it to know it, the shaking of sobs he felt in the boy’s chest enough to tell the story.

“I’m sorry, Akechi.”

“Goro.”

They at once looked at each other through tired red eyes.

“I’m sorry, Goro,” he choked out.

One of Goro’s hands found his bloodied ones and he gripped tightly, almost painfully.

“Shut up, Akira,” he breathed lightly, faint smile on his lips, “It was always going to end this way, you know. An eventuality of my plan…” he coughed hard, hissing at the pain it undoubtedly caused in his chest. “And to think Masayoshi Shido would be the one to do it.”

Akira couldn’t speak. There was nothing to be done now, nothing to be said that didn’t involve his past failings. And Goro didn’t need to hear him wax poetic over what could’ve been when he was right in front of him, very real and very bloody in his arms. So he just did his best to blink back the rest of his tears and hold tightly to Goro’s hands, which were spasming between weak and strong grips as the boy slowly lost control. As he slowly lost his life.

“Don’t forget your promise,” Goro said, a dark whisper, before going utterly limp. Akira never let go of his hand.

 

None of the Phantom Thieves approached as their leader held a beaten, bloody, dead Akechi Goro in his arms. It didn’t seem appropriate. But outside of Akira’s realm of awareness, Haru buried herself in Makoto’s chest, a mess of conflicting emotions. Makoto in turn gripped her tightly with one arm, the other reaching out to hold Ann’s hand as the blonde girl cried as quietly as she could manage. Futaba sat on the ground utterly silent and devoid of expression, staring into the floor. Morgana stood next to her with a paw on her shoulder. Ryuji and Yusuke watched with pained expressions as their leader came undone. The full force of their first failure as Phantom Thieves weighed them all down, but Akira most.

How could they call themselves the Phantom Thieves when the person who needed them most, who was right under their noses the whole time, was left unaided and alone in the world of cruel adults? He was just like the rest of them in that regard. And if anything, he was more a Phantom Thief than anyone; he died to save them, after all. Akira could only watch like a deer in headlights.

What if they _had_ met a few years earlier? No, what if instead of worrying about saving his own sorry skin, he’d reached out instead? Definitions be damned, what if he’d asked Goro what the Detective Prince really thought of Kurusu Akira? What if the Phantom Thieves never had to hatch their master plan, what if Akira never had to play dead? What if Akira had insisted that no, Goro never bothered him. In fact, he’d wished Goro would bother him more. What if he’d told Goro he could come by Leblanc every day and he’d make him coffee just the way he liked it? A little on the sweeter side.

What if he’d looked Goro in the eye and told him he also thought fate was bringing them together?

His eyes stung. He’d never know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF

**Author's Note:**

> oof


End file.
